


Rat's Out Of The Bag

by Awesome_Sauce432



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Beau Finds A Rat, Fluff, Gen, Let Beau Have A Pet That Likes Her And Doesn't Run Away Challenge, it's what she deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 12:13:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20564132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awesome_Sauce432/pseuds/Awesome_Sauce432
Summary: Beau finds a rat hiding in her bedroll, and contrary to everyone else she's ever met in her life, she doesn't see a vermin that needs to be chased off or otherwise gotten rid of. She sees an opportunity for a pet.





	Rat's Out Of The Bag

Beau woke up to movement against her hip, scratchy and sniffling. In the clumsy liminal space between sleep and wakefulness, she shuffled one of her hands over to her hip, only to feel something hairy, the fur stiff and sharp against her fingers. Before it began to _writhe_.

The thing wriggled out of the loose handgrip she’d gotten it in, a harsh squeaking sound piercing the previously near-silent air. “The-_fuck-_”

Beau scrambled out of her bedroll in a flash, kicking the hole over so that it was more or less closed up, unintentionally trapping whatever it was inside. There was a tiny, shaking mound visible inside the bedroll, distressed squeaks muffled through the fabric.

Checking her hip, she saw herself unharmed but one of the pouches attached to her belt gnawed through, fragments of weeks-old pocket bacon crumbling out in her hands.

What the…

Frowning, Beau glanced around the room at the admittedly rather shady inn room they’d rented. With only one room available most of them had ended up on the floor, Beau included. Caduceus and Caleb had squished onto the one bed available, the both of them having gotten hit by a nasty spell earlier that day. Everyone else had taken whatever space they could get, but none of them seemed disturbed by Beau’s sudden movement.

There was no sign of anything strange happening in the room, just the still-squeaking mass now stuck in her bedroll. Possibilities floated around in her head, and Beau double-checked that everyone else was still safely asleep before carefully unfolding the top of the bedroll, putting her night vision goggles on as she did.

At the last moment, she grabbed a handful of pocket bacon out of her pouch before very, _very _slowly peeking inside the bedroll, trying not to leave any space for the creature to bolt past her and escape.

In the murky vision her goggles afforded her, she could see a small, round-shaped creature huddling in a corner of the bedroll, hissing at her. It was a rat, dark and fuzzy, beady eyes wide with fear and a tail wrapped around it.

For a few moments, rat and monk just stared at each other in a silent standoff. The rat seemed haggard, a chunk torn out of one of its ears and its tail far shorter than a rats usually was, ending in a ragged stub.

Her initial shock and conclusion faded into curiosity, as the rat didn’t make to try and claw her face off or anything, just cowering as far away from her as it could get.

“Hey, buddy.” She whispered, slowly poking her hand with the bacon into the bedroll.

The rat briefly panicked, turning around and clawing at the fabric, squeaking madly.

“Shh-shit, _shhhh_-” Beau winced, finally just tossing the bacon as far into the bedroll as she could. Some of the pieces hit the rat, sending it into another round of panicked squeaking as it found itself unable to slash a hole to the outside.

Beau wriggled her head and shoulders into the bedroll along with the arm that had been holding the bacon, dimly hoping that none of the others woke up to see her doing it. With her hand, she brushed some of the bacon pieces closer to the rat as gently as she could.

It took a while for the rat to calm down, burrowing itself beneath some of the bacon pieces and going back to just staring at her, as if waiting for her to do something else. After a minute or so, it began to nibble on one of the offered bacon pieces.

The corner of Beau’s mouth twitched upwards, and after watching the rat slowly make its way through the bacon she’d already thrown into the end of her bedroll, she pulled out the pouch with the rest of it.

“Want more?” Making sure the pouch was open as wide as it could go, nudging it towards the rat.

Rats were smart, she knew. She’d done a weeks worth of research on them when she was seven, and unlike many of the things her tutors had tried to teach her, that knowledge had stuck. Her parents may have given her a hard refusal on having a rat as a pet, but perhaps it was a dream that she’d never really let go of.

The rat froze for a moment, looking between her and the bacon pouch multiple times before dashing, disappearing into the pouch in a flash.

Shuffling out of the bedroll, Beau held the pouch carefully, watching the rat wriggling around inside of it, happily munching on all the bacon in there. A worthy sacrifice, in her opinion. She had more pocket bacon stashed in her pack anyway.

It didn’t seem to take long before the sounds of chewing stopped, the rat finally settling down in the pouch, its tail poking out of the hope it had gnawed into it before. Hesitantly peering into the top of the pouch, Beau could see the rat’s face looking upwards, almost smug. It squeaked happily, and Beau couldn’t help an actual smile.

“I think I’ll call you Montgomery.” She whispered to herself. Monty for short.

* * *

The next morning, Beau was mildly surprised to find Monty was still there, dozing happily in her pocket bacon pouch. It was a possibility he’d just eaten so much it couldn’t move (after closer inspection, she was pretty sure it was a he), but she chose to believe that it was because he liked her.

Statistically, there had to be at least _one _animal that liked her, right?

Monty was content even when Beau attached the pouch to her hip again, leaving it a little open but not suspicious looking as the others began to wake up.

She wasn’t sure why her first instinct was to keep him hidden. But it wasn’t like a rat was a blink dog, or a weasel, or even an owl. Hardly anyone saw the value in rats as pets. Hell, Nott and Yasha were used to _eating _rats on the regular, so…

The Mighty Nein were her friends, but all the same, a part of her didn’t want to risk it. Probably the same part that still smarted from being denied whatever pet she’d asked for when she’d been younger.

So she tucked her rat away safe where he wouldn’t be seen, slipping in more bacon from her other hiding place to keep him quiet while everyone packed up and they prepared to head out.

She was able to keep him hidden away for the whole day, silently giddy at the whole situation. That night (once again sleeping on the ground, this time on the side of a road) she put the pouch just next to her inside her bedroll, hoping none of the others would notice. Luckily for her, Monty seemed to be of the quiet sort, barely making a squeak now that he seemed confident she wasn’t going to kill her.

Of course, her luck had always had a rather nasty habit of not lasting for long.

This time, Beau woke up to a shriek in the early morning, the sun just beginning to light up the sky. Immediately her eyes went to the pouch, only to find it empty.

Jester was the one who shrieked, scrambling out of her own bedroll. “_Caaaaaalebbbbb_, I thought random creatures weren’t supposed to be able to get into the dome!”

“Wha-?” Caleb was blinking blearily. “What is it?”

“There’s something in my bedroll!”

Ah, fuck.

While Jester did her best reenactment of a wife dramatically fainting at the news of her husbands passing, distracting the majority of the Nein that had bothered to wake up to this (Fjord really could sleep like a rock when he wanted to), Beau snuck over to Jester’s bedroll.

It was empty. Shit.

“Where’d he go?” Beau asked aloud, straightening up and scanning the floor. Her heart sank. He’d run away, hadn’t he? Of course he had.

“Over there!” Nott, who had literally climbed on top of a slightly miffed Yasha at the first hearing of strange creatures in the dome, stabbed a finger somewhere close to Beau’s bedroll. Half a dozen people followed her pointing, and Beau’s eyes widened when she saw Monty, stubby tail and torn ear and all, frantically trying to burrow its way back into her bedroll.

“A rat?” Caleb appeared vaguely annoyed that he’d been woken up for this, turning to Jester with exhaustion in his eyes. “Did it bite you?”

“No…” Jester seemed to have calmed down a little. “I think it was trying to get into my pockets.”

“Well, it’s about to get into my stomach.” Nott flashed them a toothy grin before pulling out her crossbow, taking aim at the tiny, defenceless rat. Oh _no_.

“Don’t!” Without even thinking, Beau slapped her arm down over Nott’s crossbow, knocking it out of the unsuspecting goblin’s hands and sending it clattering to the ground. Monty was squeaking in terror now, finally wriggling its way into the relative safety of her bedroll.

“Beau! What was that for?” Nott planted her hands on her hips, before climbing off Yasha to pick up her crossbow.

“Don’t shoot him.” Beau frowned, stomping over to her bedroll and rummaging around inside it until she found her bacon pouch. Like she’d hoped, Monty had sought refuge inside it. “He’s not doing anything.”

“It’s a rat,” Nott said bluntly, looking not at Beau but at her crossbow, making sure it wasn’t damaged.

“Did you bring a rat in here Beau?” Jester was looking confused now, sitting down on her bedroll. Everyone else was awake by now, not even the deepest sleeper among them able to ignore the commotion. Everyone was looking right at her.

Beau hesitated, glancing down at Monty, shivering in the pouch. He’d probably just been looking for food, Jester always had crumbs from pastries or cupcakes on her. “Yeah.”

“Why?” That was Caleb. His voice didn’t _sound _angry or anything but she didn’t answer for a moment anyway, pausing to try to detect any traces of disgust. There weren’t any. Just confusion.

She shrugged. “He’s not hurting anyone, I didn’t think he’d run like that…”

“Haven’t you mentioned wanting a rat as a pet before?” Caduceus still seemed half asleep, his ears even droopier than normal and his hair a mess. But apparently he’d been listening.

Beau nodded silently, and a beat passed before any of the others said anything.

“Why’d you hide him?” Fjord’s voice was clear, but Beau pointedly kept her gaze downwards, gently stroking Monty’s head. At least he seemed to be calming down a little.

“Nott nearly shot him.” She said bluntly, hoping the others would accept that.

Nott snorted and mumbled something that Beau didn’t care to decipher, and the others made varying noises of agreement that yes, that probably was reasonable. Most of them, anyway.

“You were hiding him before that, though,” Yasha said. Beau had to force her muscles to stay relaxed, probably with mixed success.

Fuck. Cat’s out of the bag now, she supposed. Or rat.

“It’s stupid.” She sighed. “I didn’t think any of you would like having a rat around as a… pet. I also thought Nott and Yasha might eat him.”

There was a beat, and everyone looked at Nott and Yasha. They both looked at each other before shrugging.

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Nott grumbled. “But I guess _one _rat can be off-limits.”

“Beau, we’ve already picked up weasels and blink dogs, rats would be a rather weird place to draw the line.” Fjord drawled, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “You have to feed it, though.”

Beau carefully glanced around the others, trying to get a sense if they all agreed with where this conversation seemed to be heading. “So… you all don’t mind him?”

“Well, it would be nice if he didn’t go crawling around in my bed,” Jester said, a teasing smile on her face. “But you said rats can make really good pets, right?”

A glimmer of a smile began to appear on Beau’s face as the others nodded, not necessarily very enthusiastically but nodded nonetheless.

“Does he have a name?” Caleb asked, and Beau was definitely properly smiling now. If only her seven-year-old self could see her now.

“Monty. Short for Montgomery.” Her voice was tinged with pride, and she didn’t try to hide it.

“Oooh, fancy.” Jester was grinning, shuffling over towards Beau with Sprinkle around her neck. She peered into the pouch, cooing now that the rat hadn’t surprised her. “Hellooo, Monty. This is Sprinkle! I’m sure you guys can be great friends.”

“Well this has been a great morning, but it’s time we get moving.” Fjord stretched his arms and stood up, patting Beau on the shoulder as he walked towards where they’d parked the cart.

Everyone else began to pack up, some walking a little closer to get a better look at Monty before going about their day again. Beau stood up herself, leaving her disturbed bedroll on the ground for the moment as Caduceus walked up to her.

“I’d be careful with Sprinkle.” He whispered lowly, making sure Jester was out of earshot. “I think weasels eat rats.”

“I’ll keep him safe,” Beau said firmly. She’d make rat armour if she had to. Could she do that? Fuck it, she’d find a way.

“I’m sure you will.” Caduceus cast a lazy smile at her, before looking down at the thankfully-now-calm rat, who was currently safely in his pouch in Beau’s hands. “Welcome to the Mighty Nein, Monty.”

He walked off, busying himself with packing up and getting ready for the morning alongside everyone else. Beau would have to join them in a second too, but for a few moments, she stood there, her new pet nestled in her hands. She hadn’t stopped smiling yet.

**Author's Note:**

> the only reason this exists is because i a) wanted a rat named Montgomery and b) wanted beau to be HAPPY DAMN IT and c) think Rat's Out Of The Bag is an absolutely hilarious name for a fanfic 
> 
> so here you go 
> 
> beau gets her pet rat who loves her and she feeds him bacon and sprinkle doesn't eat him and they live HAPPY EVER AFTER BEST FRIENDS FOREVER


End file.
